That's a great analogy, and it makes me wonder just how closely did Carmack himself follow this advice early in his career. I suspect that he wouldn't have got where he is without an unusually deep interest in the nuts and bolts.
Well - I've read some about origin of Doom/Wolfenstein - it was definitely a mixed bag (as expected from young man), but there was definitely a focus on end result (smoother animation, better 3d), than coding just for the sake of coding.
I think in context "smoother animation" and "better 3d" might be the kind of things that in this hypothetical future would be driven by ai. I think we'd be talking more about understanding story and reward mechanisms.
There's a mention in the book from the sibling post that he thought that single text slide is enough for the story background in shooters. Not necessarily truth looking at modern games.
Still, even then he was far from "let's use new library, just because it's fun to play with".
If you have even a passing interest in this, you will enjoy the book Masters of Doom, which is about the early days of id software. I think that's what the GP is referring to.
